Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

Jamal Khashoggi's Last Column Before Disappearance Calls For Free Expression

.....He reflected on the hope that many in the region had in 2011, as uprisings swept through the Middle East, in what has widely been called the Arab Spring.

"Journalists, academics and the general population were brimming with expectations of a bright and free Arab society within their respective countries," Khashoggi wrote. "These expectations were quickly shattered; these societies either fell back to the old status quo or faced even harsher conditions than before."

Khashoggi spoke about increasing crackdowns on journalists by Arab governments. He called for a "platform for Arab voices."

"Through the creation of an independent international forum, isolated from the influence of nationalist governments spreading hate through propaganda, ordinary people in the Arab world would be able to address the structural problems their societies face," he wrote.......

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

Feigning moral outrage, the Times’ Thomas Friedman comes to the defense of the Saudi killer regime

Leave it to Thomas Friedman, theNew York Times’ chief foreign affairs commentator, to outdo his colleagues at the nation’s foremost sounding board for CIA propaganda when it comes to hypocrisy and deceit. This he has achieved in an op-ed piece on the murder of Jamal Khashoggi published in Wednesday’s print edition under the headline “America’s Dilemma in Saudi Arabia.”

Friedman played a key role in promoting the unprovoked and illegal US-led invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003, a war crime that resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and laid waste to the entire country. He cavalierly shifted from one pretext to another, penning columns promoting the war as a key front in the post-9/11 “war on terror,” a crusade for democracy in the Middle East and a naked war for oil.

He has since backed every US act of military aggression, including the wars for regime-change in Libya and Syria, which have killed tens of thousands more innocent people, turned millions into homeless refugees, and transformed the entire region into a killing field. He maintains a complicit silence on the US drone murder program and Washington’s key role in the Saudi-led bloodbath in Yemen, which has already killed upwards of 50,000 people and threatens another 14.1 million with starvation, according to the United Nations.

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

......... Those aspersions - which many lawmakers have been wary of stating publicly because of the political risks of doing so - have begun to flare into public view as conservative media outlets have amplified the claims, which are aimed in part at protecting Trump as he works to preserve the U.S.-Saudi relationship and avoid confronting the Saudis on human rights. ...

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

......55 members of Congress, led by Reps. Mark Pocan, D-Wis., and Ro Khanna, D-Calif., wrote to the director of national intelligence, Dan Coats, asking whether the intelligence community knew about a plot to apprehend Khashoggi ahead of time, and whether the U.S. government fulfilled its “duty to warn” him.

The letter — the text of which was already made public by Khanna and Pocan — states that the DNI’s answers will inform coming votes on the Yemen war.

“We look forward to your timely response to our inquiry as both the House of Representatives and the Senate consider privileged resolutions this fall … which invoke Congress’s sole constitutional authority over the offensive use of force to end illegal U.S. military participation with Saudi Arabia in Yemen,” the letter reads. It also promises to “use the full force of Congressional oversight and investigatory powers” if the Trump administration does not respond.....

OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, under pressure to punishSaudi Arabiaafter the killing of journalist JamalKhashoggi, said on Tuesday it would be very hard to scrap an arms deal with Riyadh worth up to $13 billion as critics have demanded.

Trudeau said the 2014 agreement for light armored vehicles, signed byCanada’s previous Conservative government and a Canadian unit of U.S. weapons maker General Dynamics Corp, had been written in such a way that taxpayers would have to pay a large amount of money to end it.

“The contract signed by the previous government ... makes it very difficult to suspend or leave that contract,” Trudeau told the Canadian Broadcasting Corp, saying his Liberal administration was looking at a number of options.

Trudeau said that “I do not want to leave Canadians holding a billion-dollar bill because we’re trying to move forward on doing the right thing.” Trudeau added that he found it “incredibly frustrating” that the terms of the contract with theSaudis meant he could not discuss it in more detail.

The opposition left-leaning New Democrats said on Monday in Parliament thatCanadashould not be arming theSaudis when they are attacking civilian targets in the war in Yemen. The New Democrats, who will be competing for the same voters as Trudeau in 2019 elections, last week called theKhashoggimatter “the latest addition in a series of horrible acts bySaudi Arabia.”

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman attempted to persuade Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to start a conflict with Hamas in Gaza as part of a plan to divert attention from the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, sources inside Saudi Arabia have told Middle East Eye.

A war in Gaza was among a range of measures and scenarios proposed by an emergency task force set up to counter increasingly damaging leaks about Khashoggi's murder coming from Turkish authorities, according to sources with knowledge of the group's activities.

The task force, which is composed of officials from the royal court, the foreign and defence ministries, and the intelligence service, briefs the the crown prince every six hours, MEE was told.

It advised bin Salman that a war in Gaza would distract US President Donald Trump's attention and refocus Washington’s attention on the role Saudi Arabia plays in bolstering Israeli strategic interests.

It also advised bin Salman to “neutralise Turkey by all means” - including attempts to bribe Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan with offers to buy Turkish arms and statements by the crown prince attempting to shore up relations between Riyadh and Ankara.

In comments made at last month's Future Investment Initiative, bin Salman claimed Khashoggi's murder was being used to drive a wedge between Saudi Arabia and Turkey. He said that would not happen "as long as there is a king called King Salman bin Abdelaziz and a crown prince called Mohammed bin Salman in Saudi Arabia".

Khashoggi was brutally killed in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul on 2 October, in an operation which Turkish authorities believe was carried out by a hit squad whose suspected members contained several members of bin Salman's personal bodyguards.

Saudi officials have denied that the crown prince has "any knowledge whatsoever" of Khashoggi's killing.

Some of the task force’s other recommendations were leaked to a close confidant of bin Salman, Turki Aldakhil, the general manager of the Al Arabiya news channel. He revealed "more than 30 potential measures" that Riyadh could take if Washington imposed sanctions.

He said the kingdom was capable of doubling or tripling the price of oil, of offering Russia a military base in the north of the country, and of turning to both Russia and China as its main arms suppliers.

Aldakhil later dismissed these threats “as his ideas only", but his original article on the Al Arabiya website sources these threats to “ decision-making circles within the kingdom”. This, MEE can reveal, is the task force set up to advise bin Salman.

Share this post

Link to post

Share on other sites

US secretary of state gave Mohammed bin Salman a roadmap to insulate himself from the scandal, a senior Saudi source tells MEE

.......Pompeo’s plan for the Saudi leadership included several steps, the Saudi source said.

When Pompeo declared on 18 October that Saudi Arabia should be given “a few more days” to complete its investigation into the case, he was giving them time to begin implementing his plan, the source said.

Since Pompeo's visit to Riyadh, the Saudis have allowed Turkish investigators into their Istanbul consulate, offered to coordinate a joint Saudi-Turkish investigation, sent a team to Istanbul to pursue the probe and arrested at least 21 suspects.

The remaining step - pinning the crime on a member of the royal family - may be taken if the arrests of those Saudi suspects don't work to ease the pressure on Riyadh....

Share on other sites

US secretary of state gave Mohammed bin Salman a roadmap to insulate himself from the scandal, a senior Saudi source tells MEE

.......Pompeo’s plan for the Saudi leadership included several steps, the Saudi source said.

When Pompeo declared on 18 October that Saudi Arabia should be given “a few more days” to complete its investigation into the case, he was giving them time to begin implementing his plan, the source said.

Since Pompeo's visit to Riyadh, the Saudis have allowed Turkish investigators into their Istanbul consulate, offered to coordinate a joint Saudi-Turkish investigation, sent a team to Istanbul to pursue the probe and arrested at least 21 suspects.

The remaining step - pinning the crime on a member of the royal family - may be taken if the arrests of those Saudi suspects don't work to ease the pressure on Riyadh....